Economic resilience and entrepreneurship: A case study of the Thessaloniki City Region

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between economic resilience and entrepreneurship in City Regions. ‘Resilience’ is an emerging concept, which has been employed to examine economic performance and responsiveness to exogenous shocks, such as financial crisis and recession. Drawing on interviews with key stakeholders in the Thessaloniki City Region, Greece, this article contributes to the emergent literature by examining the link between economic resilience and entrepreneurship. The article finds that entrepreneurship is integral to promoting the diversification and capacity building of city region economies, with the external shock of the Eurozone crisis and austerity challenging areas such as the Thessaloniki City Region to rethink their economic structure. The article concludes that entrepreneurship is critical to restructuring and adaption of city region economies before drawing a series of recommendations concerning the wider policy implications of the study.